boat and the screaming wind, we weren't
going anywhere.
We landed on a small island, and Charlie
said cheerfully, "No problem. There's a fish
ing camp on the other side. We'll stay there."
In the unwritten law of the north, strang
ers in need are never turned away. The three
Inuit families at the camp welcomed us and
set out a meal of freshly caught arctic char.
In halting English, Moses Naluiyuk told
me that his grandparents, his parents, and
other Inuit from Ivujivik had come here
every summer for years. Beluga whales and
bearded seals often swam in the little inlet in
front of the camp, and he was teaching his
son to hunt there.
"Someday I hope he will teach his son,
just as my father taught me," he said.
Henry Hudson's ChangingBay
The rack of whale meat drying outside his
tent attested to Moses' hunting skill. But he
made his living as a carver. Proudly he
showed me a foot-high chunk of soapstone
he was chiseling into an intricate scene: two
men struggling over an Inuk woman.
Tea was served, and we talked of chil
dren, fishing, carving, and this peaceful
island. "In the evening my wife and I walk
here," Moses said. "Our parents are nearly
all dead now. But we can remember them by
the things we see here."
The wind had died when we set out again
with a patched boat and borrowed motor.
Ahead, the cliffs of Digges Islands rose more
than 600 feet above the strait. No humans
live on Digges; the chief occupants are
murres, seabirds resembling diminutive
397